I was active when it was first starting, but unfortunately, ran out of time. I haven't been there in ages, I fear. It is a shame about Charles, he was incredibly enthusiastic, and the last few articles I've seen about PCBSD he was mentioned as having some sort of title or status. Maybe he's still around in the background.

*blush* I've not posted there for years because I found some of the more-opinionated but ill-informed regulars (not you) to be rude.

I'm glad of that !

Quote:

Originally Posted by scottro

It is a shame about Charles, he was incredibly enthusiastic, and the last few articles I've seen about PCBSD he was mentioned as having some sort of title or status. Maybe he's still around in the background.

To me it seems as if he's dropped off the face of the earth, I don't think I've heard from him since they got someone to work on redoing PBIDir. He was once listed on the team page I think but not atm :\

I've noticed that. Not to take this topic too far away from the thread, but I visited the PC-BSD forums a few times in the last six months. There really was not much there. It did worry me, since PC-BSD seems like a reasonable way to introduce *BSD desktops to a greater audience.

One nice thing, on boards where I am not a moderator I'm not officially obligated to try keep people on topic ^_^

forums.pcbsd.org has a lot of user accounts, probably too many are spam users depending on whether or not the older bots got there accounts removed. We've had problems before, usually with the active parts of the community shouting and someone upgrading the CAPTCHA and such things to curtail it for many months.

Like any support focused bulletin board many people join when they have a Q or a P and then leave when everything going good for them. Leaving a small core of people that are regular visitors of varying fluencies and assistance.

I've been on PC-BSDs forums since November, 2005 and I've used both PC-BSD and FreeBSD since January 2006... My first installs of both.

I barely recognize the 'regular crowd' there any more, I'm probably one of the only ones left there who still remembers when PC-BSD was still Release Candidate software... When I was 'young' in the community there, there was a good amount of people that had been around since PC-BSD was in beta testing.

The developers spend there time with the mailing list not the forums, there is probably a google group(s) somewhere whether or not it is populated I don't know. I personally prefer the forums but to each there own.

Usually if I need any real help, I fire up KNode and make a posting somewhere under comp.unix.bsd.* or visit an IRC channel.

Specifically, this site needs to get way, way up on the list of search engine results for "bsd forum", et al, in order to attract new traffic.

Please let us know how we can help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ai-danno

I think the one angle that's not been considered (or perhaps I've missed it) is Google searches based on actual content (forum posts that address specific issues of interest to someone searching), instead of Google searches based on terms like "bsd" and "forums".

I have been an ama-chewer web builder for years.
Disregarding payments to Google or being a country:

As regards sitemap it informs googlebot what to index.Throw a sitemap (plain text from memory) in your website directory and googlebot reads that.
Googlebot can work this out on it's own without sitemap. It does what spiders on the web do - they follow links.

The major advantage of sitemap is that can direct googlebot to areas of a site that may not be linked to any other part of the web (probably rare).
For sites that are hard for googlebot to find (limited links from external sites) or hard for googlebot to index (not many internal links joining a site together) sitemap may be the only way to get accurately and regularly indexed.
It is not intended to help change a rank.
It only ensures Google knows what pages exist and where to find them. Googlebot looks for a sitemap and crawls from that rather from links alone.

There is an expectation of a slight advantage in speed on being included in the index (nothing do do with ranking - only being on the start line).
Google claims to give preference to webs that have sitemaps.
It creates confidence that new pages will be indexed as soon as Google gets around to it .

Besides indexing pages, sitemaps tell googlebot when to come back again and re-index.
So instead of being indexed in a month it might take a week (or a month). Still expect to be result 8675 out of 10,000. For any site that seriously considers that an issue (i.e., a new site looking to be indexed, Google have a submission form - no sitemap necessary).
Nevertheless, as with sitemaps, Google will do it when they do it.
Their engine is proprietary and any metrics are looking at the output of a very complex (indexing the intarweb) black box.
This is a discussion in itself - how to measure Google.

None of this is an issue with a site that will have 10,000 links going every which way and then changing regularly. You have already far exceeded any usefulness of sitemap. Furthermore, because of the vast size of the web (vast I tell's ya) I really doubt Google has the required number of trained spiders to visit here regularly enough to keep up with the posts anyway ...
Besides that, you try and write a sitemap for the pages you have already ...

ai-danno is correct regarding CONTENT. Google at least has for a long time been basing it's rankings and results based on content (and links). Meta-tags are largely (last time I checked) ignored by SE's.
This is your number one (numero uno) tactic in the war for SE domination (FTW).
In pwain engrish, the words on your page(s) should correlate with the words people use when they search. If it sounds simple, it is.
There are, however, a few tricks.
Google (and others) use a few items to determine the relevance of your page to a particular search.

The title.
Yes. The title tag.
<title>DaemonForums - BSD forum</title> will already go a long way to that first spot.
Use a H1 tag. Make it the same as your title.
<H1>DaemonForums - BSD forum</H1>
It may look ugly. Perhaps you can find some way of making it less ugly.
Ignore it at your peril.
Text. Repeat the title (and H1) again somewhere in the text.
You appear to have done this (almost) already with your welcome:
"DaemonForums - the premier help resource for BSD".
These three things together are your best weapon in the über elite pit sport that is SE ranking ...

Just as important as making them the same is making them relevant. Relevant to the searches you want to win (there are no prizes for second place - except in the olympics, oh and motor racing, oh and ...). Win I tell's ya.
In other words, pick where you want to be found and use it.

Do this for all your searches you want to pwn. How?
Have a relevant title for the various forums. For instance:http://daemonforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=9
<title>FreeBSD Installation and Upgrading - DaemonForums</title>
Welcome: FreeBSD Installation and Upgrading
Excellent. Add a H1 tag and you are ahead by a country mile (not to be confused with a city mile).

It ought to be clear (it is to me) that you are already doing the most important thing you can do to make your pages relevant to searches.
Do it a little better and you will go where few others dare.
For instance, at the FreeBSD install page:http://daemonforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=10
FreeBSD Security - DaemonForums
Add the word secure. You have security and securing.
I guess many people might search "secure FreeBSD".
However, as it is mainly user driven content, there becomes a point where adding more text is annoying to the users.
Yes, that does mean that the text in a page does have some value. Even if it does not occur in the title or H1.

Personally, I would think you have done plenty. Considering that because of the large number of pages being generated and the different words used, Google will at some point index you for cancer cure.
Everything else is from linking.

There is a lot more to it. That is the main stuff.

BTW. Your initial content is what Google shows when you appear on a result.
Your description and keyword tags are of zero use. There may be some engines around that still use them ...